Case Note could apply for citizenship. 17 The Registry issued the applicant’s parents with ‘old-style’ passports that had space for the names of children to be inscribed. 18 However, the Registry refused to enter the names of the children with an official stamp, so the applicant’s parents inscribed their children’s names themselves. 19 With their situation in Zimbabwe unsafe, the family left for South Africa in 2008. 20 The applicant’s mother continued to attend the Zimbabwean consulate in Johannesburg in an attempt to register the birth. 21 These attempts were rebuffed on the basis that, without new-style passports, they did not have sufficient proof of identification. 22 Effectively trapped in South Africa, the applicant’s mother explained how they were subjected to harassment and the children were vulnerable to trafficking without their own identity papers. 23 III STATELESSNESS IN THE AUSTRALIAN CITIZENSHIP ACT 2007 As the decision maker in the AAT noted, Rubenstein had explained the provisions of the Act were carefully crafted to give effect to Australia’s treaty obligations in relation to stateless persons … [therefore] at least in the context of stateless persons, Australian citizenship was not a privilege but could be a right. 24 Critical to the determination of the principal issue was the disjunct between the applicant’s theoretical and substantive eligibility for Zimbabwean citizenship: was the practical impossibility of the applicant registering her birth in Australia (which would have otherwise enabled her to obtain Zimbabwean citizenship) sufficient to render her unable to acquire Zimbabwean citizenship, and satisfy s 21(8)(d)? Section 37 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe provides that persons born abroad are citizens by descent if either of their parents or any of their grandparents was a Zimbabwean citizen and the ‘birth is registered in Zimbabwe in accordance with the law relating to the registration of births’. 25 The applicant argued that the requirement that the birth be registered ‘in accordance with the law’ 26 rendered the procedural step of birth registration a substantive requirement of s 37. 27 Therefore, if registration was not procedurally possible (as in this case), s 37 could not be satisfied and the applicant would be ineligible for citizenship. 28 The applicant also argued that even if that interpretation was not accepted by the AAT, the facts showed the Zimbabwean government had refused the applicant’s citizenship application and therefore, as a 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 ibid [19]–[21]. ibid [21]. ibid [21]–[22]. ibid [22] ibid. ibid. ibid [24]. Re DLSV (n 2) [35]. Constitution of Zimbabwe (Zimbabwe) s 37 (emphasis added). ibid. Re DLSV (n 2) [39]. ibid. 179